Crazy Curling!

This past weekend, Michael and I had a fun date night (thank you GraGra and Papa Greg) and we met a bunch of people to go curling. Yep, curling. That crazy ice sport that only surfaces on American tv during the winter Olympics. We've actually been before, so this was our second attempt!

Pittsburgh is home to, not surprisingly, The Pittsburgh Curling Club housed at the Robert Morris University ice rink on Neville Island. They offer several open houses throughout their season and offer to teach random people (such as us) how to curl. It is a blast.

You cannot take yourself very seriously while trying to glide on ice, pushing 42 pounds of granite, and aiming for a four foot circle about a mile down the ice rink. You are guaranteed to fall on your bum at least once, so you might as well get it over with.

Anyway, this is what curling is supposed to look like. Crazy Canadians.


This is what our curling lessons looked like.....

This is me learning how to push off, being taught by the awesome Mark. He's Canadian. Listen to how positive Rachel is about this!


Now Matthew "throwing" and Rachel and Michael sweeping. Matthew had a tendency to throw a little "heavy" and shoot through the back of the target...


And finally, Rachel throwing and Michael and Matthew are sweeping. Now, standing down at the target is the "Skip" of the team. The Skip tells his teammates when to sweep and how fast to sweep (to help the stone go faster or farther). Michael and Matthew do not listen well to their Skip. That's all I'll say on that.


Anyway, our little foursome played a mini-game against some other newbies (although, I hear they had a ringer). We lost. We didn't even score a single point. Very sad. But still fun.